 update on the national media. Here on American Issues Take Two, and I'm Jay Fiedel, and we have with us today Stephanie Stahl-Dalton, Cynthia Sinclair, and our special esteemed guest, Chuck Crumpton. Thank you everybody for joining us today for this discussion to update us on the national media, especially now when the media is again being played. You know, it's not like you play the media, the media itself is being played. Got my meaning, Cynthia? Is the media being played? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. And they started a while back, and I looked up the specifics for CNN, which is sort of my bellwether here in all of this. CNN, you know, been so outspoken against what Trump has been doing and outspoken about, you know, trying to call the lie a lie. And then suddenly, right after the second hearing, I tuned in to CNN, and I thought, what's going on here? And if you look back to the show, our show right afterwards, I was like up in arms trying to figure out what was going on, because the way the setup was, was they had, Elliot Williams is just kind of a slight little guy, and right next to David Urban, who is Mr. Republican himself. He's this big sort of hoaking guy, too. And then on the other side of the table, there's Gloria Berger, or Berger, who is an awesome, awesome journalist with a great reputation, sitting next to Alyssa Berra Griffin, who is the White House director of strategic communication during Trump's run. And when I'm watching, this is Anderson Cooper, and what I'm watching is Anderson Cooper give just extended amount of time to both David Urban and this Alyssa Berra Griffin girl. And then as soon as like Gloria tried to like, you know, chime in and counter what they had said, and he just cut her off. He gave her like two seconds, same thing with Elliot Williams, just two seconds of time. And then he let David Urban go and go and go and this other girl go and go. And I was so mad, I thought, what has happened to CNN? And then I find out that CNN is owned by AT&T, which is also a parent company for Fox. Well, it gets even more involved than that. So from 1980, Turner Broadcasting, Ted Turner started CNN, right? And then in 1996, it went to Time Warner. From 1996 to 2018, it was Time Warner, and then it went to AT&T. From 2018 to 2022, there has been another switch though. And it showed, obviously to me, when I was watching, this is all about CNN here, right? Warner Brothers Discovery had a merger, right, in 2022. And so now there's a guy named Chris Licht, who is in charge. One of the things that I think is good about what he's doing is that he's, he kept most of the, you know, the main people in charge, but he added a bunch of new people. And they have this new idea about things. They want to give voice to the other side. I don't understand that. I want to see journalism go back to, you find the facts, you report on the facts. There's no hyperbole. There's no opinion. There's no, unless it's called opinion, and it's brought out as opinion, after the facts have been presented. I'm so tired of this opinion has now devolved truth into not even being truth anymore. And what about lies? What about lies? Well, suppose you're a newscaster and somebody is lying on your watch. Suppose you're, you know, you have a news story where somebody has lied. Suppose we talk about the big lie. What does Chris Licht have to say about that? No more talking about the big lie on CNN. Maybe they can refer to it differently, but they can't call it the big lie. And how about the big untruth? There you go. I had a teacher in grade school who would say, oh, you're talking an untruth. And so what does that mean? You're lying. That's what it means. So, you know, how do we know? We know that Fox News sort of broke off when there was this big, right, switch and this merger that went on. Fox News broke off from Fox Entertainment. And so Murdoch and his son still run Fox. And I guess they've got some sort of a say now also in, in CNN. So MSNBC, I find has the most truth in their reporting. They don't spend too much time on opinion unless they talk about it as opinion. You know, I think as far as CNN goes, they got rid of the best guy that was on CNN, Chris Cuomo was super good about having, you know, the two sides come on. But as soon as one of the sides started to lie, he would cut them off and say, no, no, no, you don't get to come on my show and lie. You know, if you want to tell your opinion about something, that's one thing, but you don't get to come on and lie. And of course, Chris Cuomo is gone now. So who's going to be the one? Even Jake Kapper, I have watched and he's a little, you know, wishy washy too, you know. And Jay, you and I talked about this yesterday. This is really important. Most of Central America, right? And they, most rural America, they don't watch any cable news. All they watch is their nighttime news station. And Sinclair Broadcasting is what ends up, you know, filling most of those news spots. And so what do we know about Sinclair? There is conservative and up Trump's butt, as you can get, excuse me, for being gross about it. But it's true. And that's how they are. And so that's what rural America is getting. So no wonder there's this big swathe of people that don't understand what's happening in our country. And I know I've gone on too long. I want to give something to you, Stephanie. Stephanie, you know, this seems to be like musical chairs with these hosts and moderators more than before. It troubles me, for example, that Rachel Maddow is off except on Mondays. It also troubles me that I can't find the news for all the commercials. I'm getting to be an expert in these fabulous high tech drugs. And I can usually tell my doctor what to do now. Yeah, the good point. I've had I've been informed by several people that one of the leg ups on on Democrats that Republicans have or conservatives have over liberals is that even though rush is gone, the conservative movement extreme conservative has talk radio. And with what Cynthia was mentioning, it's it is talk radio that these people are listening to all the time. They may not have a whole bunch of TV sets, you know, out there in rural land that we what you're referring to Cynthia, so that they've got this talk radio going on and you can pick it up everywhere, including in Hawaii. In fact, at night, sometimes that's all you can find is talk radio conservative, unless you want to do jazz or some music thing. But I'm amazed that that is an oversight. There isn't. And I was wondering if Rachel Maddow is doing some things on podcasts that are going to catch that up. But as to see an end effort here, I don't understand that they're letting Brian Stelter go and the reliable sources that that was a program that I thought was stellar and matches up with those that Cynthia listed as really, you know, new neutral and covering the news. So also they hired Chris Wallace a while ago, and that then they fired that then they canceled that whole program set. So what is he now held back in the supply room? Why isn't he being brought out because he's another guy that does what you were saying Chris does, which I wish he had done more of that that's over with him. But Chris could come in, Chris Wallace could come in and take on something like that. I haven't seen his name brought up in anything. Did he retire? I don't know. So I think that it's possible we're jumping the gun here or the shark and and we need to sit back and see what this licked guy new CEO for CNN actually is trying to make happen. Because it would be I see that that CNN and MSNBC are kind of mur are kind of morphing into each other. So I'd be fine with CNN getting back to a much more reliable sources or more neutral neutral and to do the kinds of things that you described earlier are done on the program on behalf, you know, in the back of getting the facts out, you know, for both sides and opinions on that and let MSNBC, as I believe it is bias, I think most people experience it as bias and this kind of considered poison by anybody on the conservative side. So it's great to have those two shows if they are different, that gives up the more liberal viewpoint on how more diverse outlook that would be good as far as I'm concerned. But let's see what he's going to do. But it's real questionable how he's going about it now. Chuck, I would like to get to, you know, the very important point of how well the media, whatever side, whatever orientation is doing on Trump's campaign against the FBI, against the Department of Justice, against law enforcement about what happened in Mar-a-Lago. You know, it seems to me that what's coming out is not legally accurate. You know, you want the affidavit with all that sensitive information in a case of violation of classified information, nuclear sequence, you want the affidavit that would reveal all the people and then you would, you know, distribute that list of people and wind up having them threatened or injured or killed. Do we really need that? Do we really need a special master? From a legal point of view, these things strike me very questionable. And yet they are sucking all the oxygen out of the room, just like his other arguments in his attack on the FBI. So from that point of view, is the press covering this correctly, or are they just perpetuating misinformation, disinformation, and allowing the public to be confused? That's a great question, Jay. And I think we need to look at in the historical context that maybe the major thing that happened with the media during the Trump presidency was that they essentially handed over a complete control of the narrative to the Trump camp. Initially Trump, and then some others, Cruz, McCarthy, McConnell, others started to pick up on that. They got in pieces of it. But if you look at who the media is, who funds them, who controls them, where those dollars come from and where they go, there's no question that they're not engaged in the old Edward R. Murrow style, Walter Cronkite style of investigative objective journalism. There was a little bit of that from damn rather at the beginning of the Trump administration, which was gradually kind of snuffed out like air to a candle. And it hasn't been replaced. We don't have journalists of that caliber, that quality, that character, or that courage to have stepped into that place. We have Heather Cox Richardson, who is an extraordinary blog disseminator on what's happening in our political system, and I commend her. But if anyone is looking to our media establishment to try and set right the misuse and manipulation of the narrative by the Trump camp, I don't see any signs of that happening. Yeah. Jeff Portnoy was on the show yesterday. And his point about all this is that Trump has been sort of setting us up on this. And just as he manipulated the press when he was in real estate back when in New York, he's a past master at it. And this is a campaign that is very effective. And as you say, he controls the narrative and the press goes along with it. I mean, back in the day when he was in real estate, he would make these fraudulent calls to the press and pretend to be other people and give them core tips. And they would, you know, they would take those tips and formulate the news around those tips. And now he's doing the same thing. This is a major, major campaign. And I think there's a lot of factors in here. But I guess the ultimate question, Chuck, I want to ask you is, are people being correctly informed? Or is public opinion, public sensibilities, public understanding going off the side? And if it is, where does that take us? One of the things that's really interesting with recent developments is that two things happened after Miro Lago. One of the more respective general nighttime news people for NBC had a sit-down interview with Merrick Garland who just laid out for him the intent to proceed without fear or favor for wherever the investigation would lead. We see Trump's comebacks, the shot at special master, that's not working, the attempt to twist things around, that's not working. And even the heavily redacted affidavit in support of the Miro Lago search that the DOJ submitted and the judge has approved and cleared now, that's come out of DOJ approval. So I think strategically they're dealing with this in a very, very adverse media situation, about as well as they can. But you're right, for the consumer, the access to objectively reliable comprehensive information is extremely challenging. Yeah, we're 90 days away from an election, Cynthia. And, you know, is the public ready for this? Some people are already voting, you know, by mail-in ballots, what have you. This has got to have, and it's a very hard question I put to you, all of you guys. Is the public ready? Does the public have objective information? Or is this going to affect the vote? Isn't affecting the vote now? And, you know, I would say the answer to that is easy, but the more difficult question is, how is it affecting the vote? Well, it's the same problem that we've had from day one. Once Trump took over and made the media the enemy of the people, so nobody has any kind of, they don't think they have any integrity and no one has any trust in them anymore. So, even when they're being told the truth, they go, oh, maybe it's not true. So, it creates this whole soup of uncertainty, right? And so you're going to have the people, though, that are in the rural areas that are getting their news from Sinclair Broadcast, and they're going to think their way. And they're going to think they know what's true and they know what's real. And the same thing is going to happen to the urban people who are watching this NBC, or even NBC, you know? Lester Holt does a good job. CBS, they do a good job, right? Even ABC does a good job. But some of these in the rural areas are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. And so they don't get the same like, we get ABC, NBC, CBS, and it's one thing. And it's not always that when it's shown in the rural areas. And so I think there's going to be a big divide, just like there was before, although now, because there has been a lot of talk in the media about the big lie and literally the big lie, those two words have gone a long ways to establish facts that otherwise wouldn't have been just those two simple words. And so I think people will hold on to that when they're looking at someone who is a big liar, someone who is an election denier liar, they're going to go, wait, that's the big lie. Wait a minute. I don't want the big lie. So even people that aren't super informed have heard about the big lie and they know what it is. So I think that that's going to bring people over to the Democratic side also because they don't want to follow somebody that's part of the big lie. And that's why it's so troubling that Chris, as we're not going to use that term anymore. Yeah, exactly. Very troubling because the message there is there is no big lie. Right, absolutely. Stephanie, let me go to you. And this is also a hard question. Ready? Yeah. Hit me with your best shot, Jay. Okay. We know that nothing stays the same, especially in the political environment we've had since Trump and things move so quickly. And I have to say the media changes too. We've been talking about that. But how has it changed? Say from a year or two or three years ago, how has it changed from the middle of the Trump administration till now? And where is it going? What are the trends you see? We know there are changes. Maybe some changes we don't like. But what are those changes? And what are the changes to follow? I think we are at soap opera across the board. It's all devolved. The days John Chancellor, Walter, Roger Mudd, Dan Rather, gone. Gone. Along with their integrity too. But that style has just been chucked. And we've moved along very rapidly into I think what Fox News went to early on because they want to be the graphic novel. Let's get some more appeal here for everybody to be able to see it and understand it. Let's not use any big vocabulary words. That's why we say big lion, not mendacity or mendacious. So the whole intent is turned upside. It's an inverted curve like we have on the treasuries. Where is it taking us? Clearly the negative elements of what we're watching here are there. But are they going to get worse? And in what way? Well, where they've taken us is that most of the nation, like we're looking at, it's got to be 40%, is looking at this stuff like it's a simple soap opera. Like things are clear and everyday kinds of ways of thinking. Nobody doing any in-depth or understanding indirect relationships and what's associated with what, nobody doing any of that. It's just feeding to the lack of critical thinking that's out there, the lack of discernment and judgment that's out there. So they're not trying to build that as these other news efforts I think. So far we've been talking about television cable news. But with the exception, I put the BBC and Shepard Smith is the name of a guy that's a pretty classical news person. But the big shows fall within what you're saying. The question is what about the print press? You're not wrapping this around the New York Times or the Washington Post or, for that matter, Reuters. There's a difference, isn't there? What is the difference? Well, I think that it's gotten so much even better, more our higher level and better and more at the level that we need of examination and displaying the complexities of the issues. That has all gotten much, much better, I think. The New York Times always was good and all of those high level publications, newspapers that have the big reputations have always been good, but more catching up that way like Vanity Fair and all these other magazines that used to do a lot of other stuff. I think they've raised their game and TV cable has. Are they having as much influence as the TV and Sinclair radio? Yeah, because you've got to be able to read. Now, on the radio, Rush set the standard from the beginning. When was that? 91, he first came on. When we first went into the first golf war and he started in with this style of just the slowest level of discussion and everyday conversation and not not providing people with the kinds of things that they can be challenged to think with and understand better. Anyway, so that that that model's in place. And I think that the progressive and liberal folk need to have more representation in the in the radio line, as you said. Rachel has done some of that like with Bagman and some of the things that she's done have been excellent. Who remembers the specifics of Agnew? I didn't. I mean, we know what Nixon did in general, but most people. Well, her work always reflects a level of research. Yeah, yes. The research should be involved. For example, Cynthia always does research. So Chuck, I watch MSNBC a lot and what I notice there is that, you know, there are legal experts. Some of them are national names and they call them what? Contributors and all that. I think that means they pay them. Let it be known that we don't pay anybody on Think Deck. Nobody. But these guys appear almost every day and they render legal advice and you're getting it out of the same mouth over and over again. I think the research is pretty much limited, except in the case of Rachel Maddow and maybe Lawrence McConnell. Yeah, I have a kind of a I have a reaction to that. I would like to see more research. I would like to see more faces. I would like to see the newscaster actually think about this and become a real news analyst himself or herself. What are your thoughts about seeing the same faces, giving us legal advice all the time, which is laden with opinion? Well, I mean, it goes back to the central point that you, Stephanie, Cynthia, I've been making is that the prior independent, respected objective journalists that we held in high regard for many years and had a good number of them and awarded high levels of stature and appreciation to those are gone and there's nothing in the works to replace them. Yeah. You can hire advocates to come in and that's essentially what's being done on these things, but that's a long way from independent objective journalism that ways well researched diverse sources in a search for objectively reliable truth. That's what's missing. You're right. And we're going into an election without that again. And we saw what the lack of that did for the 2016 election. So why should we expect different? Well, that's, you know, that's my, this is the major question of the show. And I'm also going to ask the others about this. So we have an attack on the FBI and the DOJ, which are really, really important institutions. And we have this attack is organized by orchestrated by led by Donald Trump for his own reasons. You know, the point yesterday with Jeff Portnoy was that he was running out of gas on his big lie. So he decided to create another thing to suck the oxygen out of the press, to play the press. And so it becomes, you know, his victimization at Mar-a-Lago. And he's good. He's good. I mean, that and, you know, it's like when you litigating you and you say to the other guy, you're good. You don't mean good at all. Trump is good. So my question to all of you guys is, is he winning this battle against the law enforcement community, DOJ, who we rely on in ways we don't even understand and the FBI and law enforcement in general? Is he winning? And the second point is, how can we deal with that? Everybody get a chance. I'm asking Chuck first. But I thought, yeah, okay. I'd say no. I'd say right now, in my view, Merrick Garland has a much better strategic team and more thought, and he's done better in response to that stuff. Trump continues to throw more and more new things out there in the classic throw it at the wall, see if it sticks philosophy. But whether he's winning attention in the media and whether he's winning credence in the populace are two different things. And if you look at major recent elections on recent issues, whether it's abortion in Kansas or representation in New York, he's not winning there, only within his own party. The question is, can he win in the overall electorate? Well, we're going to see. We are seeing soon enough. Cynthia, your answer to that, is he winning? And what can we do to avoid having the press played? Okay. So I don't think he's winning. And we forgot to talk about OAnne and Newsmax, right? Those are the two other ones that are just, it's pure Fox on steroids, right? And a lot of people pay that extra money to watch that. But I don't think he's winning against the DOJ or the FBI. I even heard this morning on Fox, because I do watch it just for investigation purposes to see what they're doing and what they're saying so we can keep track of what the other side is doing, right? And to get ready for the show today. But this morning, they had somebody on there that was talking about that the horribleness, which is not the word I want, what's wrong with going out to the FBI? And, you know, we just have to wait this out and see it through to the end. And we can't be demonizing the FBI or the DOJ or any of that stuff. And I thought that was pretty good. Okay, so what do we do about it? Last week, oh gosh, I have an embarrassing thing that I must admit, because I was talking about Liz J's new group that she's founding, right? And I said it was the Hack Watch. Oh gosh, I was so wrong. I was so wrong. Oh, and I feel so bad about it. So I have the actual, I have the actual name of it now. It's called The Great Task, which isn't that much better of a name, but it came, this is where she got the name from. And I thought that was pretty cool. So I'm going to read a little something just for my last little bit here. This will be my closing, okay? The new group, which will serve as Cheney's primary political vehicle as she considers whether to run for president in 2024, does not have an official name yet, but an informed guest is The Great Task, which was the name of Cheney's final ad of the campaign. The phrase is from the last sentence of the Gettysburg Address. And Cheney also referenced it in her concession speech from Jackson on Tuesday night. Cheney's campaign filled paperwork early Monday, I mean, they filed paperwork early Monday, converting her campaign committee to a leadership pack and renaming it The Great Task. The move will allow Cheney to contribute and continue raising money and potentially distribute it to like-minded candidates in the near term while she hashes out a longer term strategy. So that's what we can do. We can follow Liz and we can support her because she's doing a good job. That was a piece I sent around to you guys about about Liz Cheney, and it was a suggestion, opinion piece that Biden include her in his White House staff and that like pretty good idea. So Stephanie, one thing I find, if I watch the cable news, I only get like one issue or two issues or maybe three issues in a given day, and it's all about the battle, the political battle in the country. What they have stopped doing is any other news. If you look at the New York Times, the Washington Post or Reuters or The Economist or any of those better publications, you will see that they cover a lot more news. Even Shepard Smith covers a lot more news. I mean, this is very troubling. Has Ukraine stopped? Has Ukraine not involved? Used to be that MSNBC had a reporter on the ground in more than one city on a given day, and now that whole issue was off the stack. I feel like I'm being cheated and forced to watch the same issues, just one or two or three of them, all around the political divisiveness in the country every day. What are your thoughts about that? Well, I can touch a good point. It's a limited menu, and you turn it on and you just hear it over and over again. Not that they can't, they don't have to repeat they do, but I so agree with you. But what I wanted to do it with that other question you had about is he winning. I wanted to say that, yes, he's winning as long as the whole world continues to defer to him, provide him with the respect that is associated with U.S. presidents and that he doesn't in any, he hasn't earned in any way. And as he operates and always constantly, in addition to throwing stuff against the wall, as Chuck said earlier, of course, he's a pivoter. Who would be able to throw back in the face of DOJ that these kinds of things that he is and that they are taken seriously? When are people going to stop catering to him and take away this privilege and respect that he is given for every utterance? Whether it makes sense, it's logical, it isn't true. And I am appalled at this. And I think Mary Trump pointed this out in her early book and in early interviews, that he is enabled over and over again. Everybody enables him. And this is one of the ways the media is. And the Justice Department. And again, going back to what the Attorney General did say, he should be treated like we would if we went up there with a Dumbo letter about a request for a master reviewer or an extension. Why is he's got to be put in his place? And as long as they're not doing that, then we are going to be involved in this mess every day, every hour. And I'm just waiting for somebody to step up. I thought Mayor Garland could do it. But now I'm beginning, he's following up and making the request to the judges. And when is he going to say, is he going to say, stop? I think we're down to him. He's got to say, stop, this is not. That's an excellent point. And therefore, Charles, I leave it with you to answer who should be responding. Because if you have one hand clapping, and that's what Trump is doing by taking the narrative, you should have the other hand clapping too. Joe Biden does not meet him at the pass. He does not respond in kind. And for that matter, Mayor Garland doesn't either. And Chris Ray is not about to do that. It's not in his wheelhouse to do that. Who should do it? And don't you think it should be done when Trump makes an outrageous statement? Somebody should say, no, no, no, no, no, that's not true. And meet him at the pass. Are we missing the boat on this? Stephanie, repeat your thought. I'm sorry. I would just, how about ignoring him like we would be ignored? That's another part of my question, Chuck. Yes, Chuck. What about that? Who's going to do it for, who's going to take the step and risk? You know, if the media had figured that out five years ago, we wouldn't be here now. Yes, we're in the soup. If you give a narcissist a spotlight, look out. Yeah, hire a psychologist, CNN, if you want to make it better. Absolutely. That's right. This is insane. It's just been, you know, competing, you know, giving him all the runway and all the airspace he needs. Okay. While he was president, we're done with that. You are what you are now, which doesn't deserve all this attention. Yeah, well taken. So any more, Chuck? Well, I got what you wanted, then. All right. Okay, Cynthia, let's have it. Every time he has to say ex-president Trump, he says that twice impeached, disgraced, coup-plotting, disenfranchised. No, not disenfranchised. I think that's off. Yeah. Coup-plotting ex-president. So we should all refer to him that way, as that twice impeached, disgraced, coup-plotting ex-president. Okay, we're out of time, you guys. And besides, I have to go take my Sky Rizzy. It solves everything, sort of like snake oil, you know. And all the other drugs I have learned about. And I have spent so much time learning about these drugs and seeing all these happy time ads about them, I wonder about the seriousness of the news. Because for every minute that I'm watching, ostensibly, this news we get on cable, I'm watching Sky Rizzy. And I'm only saying if they really want to give us a true fact, they have to pick ads. And I don't mean playing the same ads over and over again on all the channels. They have to pick ads that have the right tone. Anyway, I gotta go. We gotta go. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you, Stephanie. We'll be back next week. on Vimeo. 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